Loren McIntyre

Loren McIntyre
Born	(1917-03-17)March 17, 1917 California
Status	Married
Died	May 11, 2003(2003-05-11) (aged 86) Arlington, Virginia
Occupation	Photojournalist
Notable credit(s)	National Geographic, Time, Life, Smithsonian, Audubon
Spouse	Sue McIntyre
Children	Scott McIntyre, Lance McIntyre

Loren McIntyre (March 24, 1917 – May 11, 2003), was an American photojournalist who worked extensively in South America. His photographs and writing appeared in National Geographic and hundreds of other periodicals. He has numerous books to his credit, including The Incredible Incas and Their Timeless Land (1975), Exploring South America (1990), and Amazonia (1991)

Early life

Loren Alexander McIntyre was born in California in 1917 and grew up in Seattle's Seward Park neighborhood. It was there that he reported first read newspaper accounts of the Galapagos Islands and the disappearance of Col. Percy Fawcett, the British explorer, in the jungles of Brazil. "The Sunday supplements had stories about whether or not he had become a white god there," McIntyre remembered in 1991, then in his 70s. He attended Seattle's Cleveland High School, the University of California, Berkeley, where he studied Latin American culture, and the University of San Marcos in Lima, Peru, where he studied ethnology and became fluent in both Spanish and Portuguese.

After his studies McIntyre joined the Merchant Marine, and when World War II broke out, he served for four years with the U.S. Navy in the Pacific theater. During his naval career, McIntyre circumnavigated the globe, visiting countries such as Japan, China, Manchuria, Singapore, India, and Africa. After the war McIntyre was assigned to the Peruvian Navy as a gunnery advisor, retiring with the rank of captain.

Photojournalism

McIntyre joined the Peruvian motion picture company Movius Films following his navel career. Their first production was Sabotaje en la Selva, a melodrama starring Peruvian actress Pilar Pallete, who would later become the third wife of John Wayne. While working for U.S. aid programs in Peru, Bolivia, and Colombia in the 1950s, McIntyre began photographing his travels. His first article as a freelance photographer and writer was "Flamboyant Is the Word for Bolivia," published in National Geographic in 1966. The article featured 47 of McIntyre's photos, including shots of Lake Titicaca, Tiahuanacu, Pututu, and Potosi.

Over the following years McIntyre's photos and articles would appear in more than 500 publications, including Time, Life, Smithsonian, and Audubon. His first book was The Incredible Incas and Their Timeless Land (1975), which sold more than 500,000 copies. Other works included Exploring South America (1990), a record of his many adventures in South America. Amazonia (1991) was produced for the Sierra Club, and an illustrated biography of Alexander von Humboldt, Die Amerikanische Reise (2000), was published in Germany. McIntyre's travels also figured in Amazon Beaming (1991), by Petru Popescu, a Romanian writer. The book recounts McIntyre's capture by an "uncontacted" Indian tribe and his discovery of the source of the Amazon River.

Source of the Amazon

In 1971 the National Geographic Society sent a three-man expedition, headed by McIntyre, to locate the precise headwaters of the Amazon river. The river was the Quebrada Carhuasanta, located in the Apurímac Region of Peru, fed by the winter snows of Nevado Mismi (5,597 m), some 6,400 kilometres from the Atlantic Ocean. Of all the possible river sources in the Amazon Basin, it is the snow melt of the Carhuasanta that has been calculated by cartographers to be the furthermost water source from the mouth of the Amazon.

The expedition travelled from the mining town of Cailloma by four-wheel drive, then climbed the Apacheta Trail and traversed onto Nevado Mismi, taking in Nevado Quehuisha and Nevado Pumi Chiri. This is, as McIntyre describes it in his 1972 National Geographic article, "a semicircle rampart of the continental divide. All that trickles from the inner rim joins to form the Apurimac."

On October 15, 1971, we reached an ice-edged ridge above Carhuasanta, longest of the five headwater brooks. The Indians call that 18,200 foot summit Choquecorao ... A thousand feet below the ridge we sighted a lake.... We clambered down to quench our thirsts.... Here at 17,220 feet was the farthest source of the mighty Amazon -- more a pond than a lake, just a hundred feet across.

Now called Laguna McIntyre, the lake is deemed the river's "true source", as it is permanent. However, the source changes continuously over time because of shifts of the weather and its impact on the countless microclimates of the region. In the wet season the mountains and altiplano are covered in snow; in the dry season it resembles a desert.

Personal life

McIntyre lived with his wife Sue for many years in South America, primarily Peru. Together they raised two sons, Lance and Scott, as McIntyre continued to travel in pursuit of photos and stories. At the end of his life the family lived in Arlington, Virginia, where McIntyre died in 2003.

Bibliography

• The Incredible Incas and Their Timeless Land (1975)
• Exploring South America (1990)
• Amazonia (1991)
• Die Amerikanische Reise (2000)